


miles and miles to go (before I dream)

by niniblack



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Lives, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 17:33:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14598129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niniblack/pseuds/niniblack
Summary: The time stone shows Stephen Strange fourteen million six hundred and five possible futures. In all but one of them, Thanos succeeds in wiping out half the life in the universe.It’s just his luck that the only chance of beating Thanos requires bringing Loki back from the dead.





	miles and miles to go (before I dream)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been lurking in this fandom for nearly a decade but I guess it took killing off my fav to make me actually write something for it. I'm posting this as I go, so no idea how quick updates will be. I'll update character tags and stuff as I go. Title is from [Before I Sleep by Joy Williams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_7Pb2-ikrI) which is a fantastic song and really sets the mood for this. Thanks to EndingThemes for the beta!

Stephen Strange can see fourteen million, six hundred and five possible futures. Over fourteen million ways that half the inhabitants of the universe dissolve into dust, breakdown into tiny particles that float away on the breeze before anyone can even grasp at them. Himself included, most of the time.

There are an infinite number of possible futures, of course, and he could spend an infinity observing them all. But common themes do start to develop...

He tells Stark this, when he’s pulled back into the present.

“How many where we win?” Stark asks.

“One.”

Stark’s expression is grim, but his eyes dart over towards the boy, Peter, and he says, “Better than zero. We can work with one.”

Peter smiles and nods. “Sure we can, Mister Stark.”

Strange just sighs. “You haven’t asked how we win in that possibility yet.”

“A combination of my good looks and the kid’s youthful optimism?” Stark says.

Strange just barely holds himself back from rolling his eyes -- it would only encourage Stark. “We need to go rescue Loki.”

Stark’s expression turns incredulous. “Loki?”

“Who’s Loki?” Peter asks.

Stark’s still talking. “Thor’s batshit crazy brother Loki? Tried to take over New York with an alien army Loki?”

“That’s the one,” Strange says.

Stark shakes his head, pacing away a few steps. “No fucking way. No. Not happening.”

Quill has made his way back over to them. “Hey are you guys planning again? I thought we agreed to my plan. Because my plan is good. Yours was not so good. You need to leave the planning to the experts on space battles here.”

“You are not an expert,” the blue man, whose name Strange doesn’t know, says.

Quill turns to him, offended. “I’ve fought in way more space battles than these guys. On account of, you know, being  _ in space _ instead of  _ on Earth _ .”

Stark ignores them, still pacing. His heavy footsteps kick up dust from the barren planet with each step, and Strange watches how it lingers in the air instead of settling back to the ground, suspended in the strange gravity of this planet. After a moment he spins on his heel, pointing a finger at Strange. “Loki’s dead!”

“Yes,” Strange says.

“So he can’t be the one that stops Thanos!”

Strange nearly rolls his eyes. “We have to go stop him from dying.”

“Who are you talking about?” Quill asks.

“Thor’s brother,” Peter explains.

“Oh, he’s dead though,” Quill says.

“Yes, we know that,” Stark says. “He’s been dead for years. Good riddance.”

“No, he died, like, yesterday,” Quill corrects him. “Thor mentioned it,” he adds, when Stark turns to stare at him.

“He told us Loki was dead last time he was on Earth, and that was years ago,” Stark says.

“Loki was alive last month,” Strange says. Stark swings around to look at him. “I found him and Thor in New York looking for their father. They left the planet again soon after.”

“So… this Loki guy’s alive?” Peter says. “Where do we find him then?”

“No, he’s dead now,” Strange says.

Stark throws his hands up in the air. “Was no one going to mention that Loki was back on Earth? Didn’t you think that  _ might _ be important?”

Strange shrugged. “I had it under control.”

“You had it--“ Stark starts in, incredulous.

“I did,” Strange interrupts, turning away from Stark before he can start talking again. They’re short enough on time without focusing on things that don’t affect the current fight. He looks at Quill. “I assume you have a ship here? We’re going to need it.”

“Hey, you’re not taking my ship!” Quill argues.

Strange pushes himself to his feet, swiping at the dust clinging to his pants. “Of course not. We’ll need you to drive it.”

“I’m staying here,” Quill says. “That’s the plan. We’re staying here and waiting for Thanos to show up, ‘cos he has Gamora with him, and then we’re taking the glove, killing Thanos, and rescuing Gamora. Or possibly she’s gonna be the one to kill him. Probably that. But anyway, the plan is  _ staying here _ and Thanos comes to us.”

“That is the plan,” the blue man chimes in. “It is a bad plan though.”

“What?” Quill spins around and glares at him. “You were on board with it five minutes ago!”

“I was not.”

“You were too!”

“Thanos is only coming here because I have the time stone, and I am here,” Strange says matter-of-factly, cutting through their bickering. “And I will be leaving shortly, in your ship, to go bring Loki back from the dead. Because, for some god forsaken reason, the only future possibility in which we defeat Thanos is one in which he is  _ alive _ .” He holds up a hand to stop Stark’s protest before he can start, and adds, “I don’t know  _ why _ Loki is necessary, but he is.”

Stark still looks like he wants to argue, but seems to bite down on it and says, “Alright, fine. How do we bring him back from the dead then?”

“We have to get the place where he died first,” Strange says. He turns to Quill. “You said you’d seen Thor? Where did you encounter him?”

Quill doesn’t look any happier about this turn of events than Stark, and answers reluctantly, arms crossed over his chest. “We followed a distress signal from his ship. Found him floating in space.”

“And he was still alive?” Peter asks, a bit awed.

Quill nods. “Unconscious, but yeah. Rest of his ship had been blown to pieces.” There’s a pause. “I guess his brother was probably one of the bodies floating out there.” He shrugs.

Peter’s awed expression shifts to horrified.

“That’s where we need to go then,” Strange says.

\---

“How far away is it?” Stark asks, once they’ve all piled onto the ship.

“Far,” Quill says, spinning his chair towards Stark a bit as he talks, hands still on the controls guiding the ship away from Titan. “They were out near Contraxia. But don’t worry, this baby’s fast.” He pats the arm of his chair.

Peter leans forward from his seat in the back. “Are we gonna jump to lightspeed? Like in Star Wars?”

Stark starts to say, “Kid, what did I--“ but Quill interrupts, chair spinning almost all the way around as he turns to look at Peter, face lighting up.

“Yeah! Yeah,” Quill says. “I mean, it’s not  _ exactly _ like Star Wars but it’s actually pretty close. The fundamentals are kind of the same we’re gonna be--“

Strange tunes their excited chatter out as the ship jerks forward, stars blurring outside the window, before it settles back into smooth flying. He can feel Stark staring at him, but doesn’t turn to meet his gaze.

Tony Stark never stays quiet for long though. “So, Doc, have you done this before?”

“Traveled through space?” Strange asks. “Not prior to today.”

“Turned back time with your magic necklace,” Stark corrects. “Brought people back from the dead.”

Strange watches the stars whizzing by outside the window. “Yes.”

“And you were just, what? Sitting on that particular skill set? Didn’t think anyone else needed to know about it?”

Strange does turn to look at him now. “Made some decisions you’d like to go back and undo?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Stark’s eyes narrow. “More like I want to know how many times you’ve just turned the clock back for the whole world and reset everything and none of us knew it was happening.”

“I used it to save the world, Stark.”

“I think I’d know if the world needed saving.”

Strange smiles at him, but knows the expression looks forced. “There are some things even the great Tony Stark doesn’t know about.”

Quill and Peter have both turned to watch them, but it’s the blue man, whose name Strange still doesn’t know -- he should ask, probably, -- who comments: “Why do they argue so much when they are identical?”

“When we’re-- what?!” Stark sputters.

Quill starts laughing, and even Peter is hiding a smirk behind his hand.

\---

They come out of lightspeed, or whatever it’s called, on the edge of a debris field. Quill’s expression is grim. “This is where we found Thor,” he says.

“He was floating -- there,” Mantis says, leaning forward between their seats to point vaguely out the front window. A chunk of metal drifts slowly past.

There are bodies floating among the remains of the ship as well, suspended in space and covered in ice.

Everyone is quiet for a long minute, looking at the remains of the Asgardians, before Stark says, “Is this the part where you turn back time then? Go back to before their ship blew up?”

Strange almost doesn’t want to answer him. “We need Loki’s body.”

Peter’s chair swings around to face him. “Can’t you save them all?” he asks.

Strange shakes his head, and holds up a hand against Stark’s echoing protest. “We can’t. Changing that much would require going back to when Thanos was here too. It would change too much.”

“But you can save  _ Loki _ .” Stark says the name like it’s a curse.

“And only Loki. He’s the one we need.”

Stark shakes his head, disgust with this plan evident.

“Well,” Quill says. “Which one is Loki then?”

\---

Finding Loki’s body among the debris field takes awhile. The ship is too big to fly that close to the debris, so Quill and Stark go out on their own. Stark’s suit apparently works in space, which Strange hadn’t known about, and Quill has some sort of mask that he says protects him in space. The body they eventually return with doesn’t actually look like Loki.

“That’s not him,” Strange says.

“It has to be,” Stark says, removing his helmet now that they’re back on board. He gestures to the body. “I don’t know why he’s blue, but that’s him.”

Indeed, the body they’ve laid out on the table at the back of the ship has blue skin, covered in raised markings where it’s exposed. Strange tries to see past that, and supposes that the face is the same, and the same long, curling hair, though it currently has tiny bits of ice clinging to the strands, already melting a bit in the heated ship. His open eyes are black pupils surrounded by red sclera, gazing at nothing. There are darker patches of skin like bruises and what might be dried blood caked along a cut on his forehead. His neck is a mottled purple and black color.

Stark leans over and closes Loki’s eyes. At the look Strange gives him, he says, “What? It was creepy.”

“This whole thing is creepy,” Quill says. He gestures to the body. “I thought you said he was Thor’s brother. He doesn’t look Asgardian.”

“I think he’s adopted,” Stark says. He shrugs when everyone turns to look at him.

“Right, well, can we get on with this?” Quill asks.

Strange waves the others away and waits until they’ve stepped back, though not as far as he’d really like, to activate the time stone.

The green mandalas that flare up around Strange’s hand throw light over Loki’s body, deepening shadows and highlighting the slight twitch his body gives as Strange starts casting the spell that will reverse the effects of time on his body. His eyes open again first, which is startling, but just a reversal of Stark having closed them. There’s a sharp gasp from someone else but Strange doesn’t spare them a glance. The blue skin fades away next, giving way to pale peach, and the red sclera melts into a bloodshot white, still sightless.

He can tell the moment that life floods back into Loki. There’s a small  _ pop _ of bones shifting -- his neck must have been broken, Strange thinks -- before his whole body jerks, hands raising to scramble at his throat for a grip that isn’t there anymore, eyes no longer glazed and sightless but still not focusing on anything. His mouth opens in a choking gasp but he doesn’t seem to take in any air.

Strange keeps going until the red marks on Loki’s throat have disappeared and he’s inhaled deeply. It won’t do any good to bring him back only to have him die again of whatever injuries he’d sustained.

When he stops the spell and glances up at the others, he’s met with dumbfounded expressions. A look back at Loki finds the demi-god still gasping for breath, blinking up at the ceiling, stunned.

“Welcome back, Mr. Odinson,” Strange says.

“Holy shit,” Quill murmurs.

It takes a few long seconds for Loki’s eyes to find Strange. He pushes himself up into a sitting position. “What--“ Loki’s voice breaks off into a rough cough. When he recovers he says, “What the fuck?” He’s looking around the ship now, body curling forward and tensing.

“Gotta admit,” Stark says, “I didn’t think that was actually gonna work.”

Strange just tilts his head at him in acknowledgment.

Loki twists around to face Stark, eyes widening.

Stark smirks at him, but it’s forced. “Hello again, Nosferatu.”

Loki stumbles to his feet, spinning in a tight circle to take in the group surrounding him, before crouching and conjuring a pair of daggers into his hands. “Where am I?” 

He reminds Strange a bit of a cornered animal, and Strange raises his hands conciliatorily. “You can put those away.”

Loki’s expression twists, nearly baring his teeth at Strange. “You again.”

“You might try thanking him,” Stark says. “Seeing as he did just bring you back from the dead.”

Loki stares at Stark for a moment, before looking at Strange again.

“It’s true,” Peter pipes up. Stark tries to wave him back, but the kid steps forward stubbornly. “You were all frozen and blue and, y’know, pretty dead. But Mister Strange brought you back.”

“Doctor,” Strange corrects him.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Peter says.

Loki’s giving Peter a strange look. “Who are you?”

Peter starts to answer, but Stark cuts him off. “He’s no one you need to worry about.”

Loki frowns. “Your son then, Stark?”

Stark starts sputtering. “What? No. No. Do I seriously look old enough to have a teenager? No one answer that.” He waves a hand in the air in a cut off gesture. “He’s not my kid. He’s my--“

“Apprentice?” Peter offers.

“Intern,” Stark says.

“I’m Spider-Man,” Peter adds, before Stark can stop him again. “Hey, why  _ were _ you blue anyway? And how come you’re not now?”

Loki frowns, but doesn’t answer. He turns back to Strange and asks, “How?”

Most of Strange’s mind is screaming at him not to trust Loki, but he knows what he saw. They need Loki to stop Thanos, and that means they need to work together with him. So he says, “I have the time stone in my possession.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “And you decided to use it to bring me back from Hel. I’m touched.” His smile is disarmingly fake, and drops off his face as quickly as it had appeared. “Why?”

“We need your help to stop Thanos.”

“I’ve already lost to Thanos,” Loki says. “Many times. What makes you think I’m stupid enough to try again?”

“One of the powers of the time stone is the ability to view possible futures,” Strange starts to explain. “Thanos wins in every future I saw except one.” He pauses, before adding, “You’re the only one who can kill him.”

At that, Loki starts laughing.


End file.
